


Grief Counseling

by NeoVenus22



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Explicit Language, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:57:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoVenus22/pseuds/NeoVenus22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After tragedy, they find each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief Counseling

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Up through 2x22, 'Not Pictured'.

They often fucked after tragedy. Grief counseling, Logan called it. Duncan found the routine of it somewhat soothing, not that the sex itself was particularly routine. It was rough, messy, and utterly without order. There was no system, no one in charge, gratification was not based on who was the most affected by tragedy. It wasn't salvation. Sometimes it was barely satisfaction. But it was all they had.

* * *

It started off innocently enough, as innocent as any sexual relationship based on grief and sorrow could really be. Logan had shown up at the Kane estate one afternoon with a squirrelly kind of gaze different from anything Duncan had ever really seen on him. "Is Lilly here?"

Duncan didn't have the heart to tell the guy Lilly was out with Casey Gant. "Nah, man. Wanna come in anyway?"

Logan seemed shifty. "Yeah, I guess."

It was the cowed head as Logan sat stiffly on Duncan's couch that suddenly sparked something in his memory. Lilly's tears after Logan left one afternoon. Lilly was not a crier. Lilly got angry, Lilly got revenge, Lilly did not cry. After he'd pressed, there'd been terse comments about belts and bruises and bastards. Duncan watched Logan carefully after that, but Logan seemed the same as ever, except for now on the couch.

"Your dad?" Duncan asked in a broken whisper, knowing that unlike with Lilly, he could not press this. He'd been lucky the first time, catching a rare vulnerable moment. He'd likely not get lucky again.

"Lilly told you," Logan said flatly, which made her current betrayal all the worse.

"Yeah. You wanna-"

"Talk about it?" Logan's laugh turned into a cough. "Not much to say. Same old song and dance."

"Okay."

"Is there-"

But the rest of Duncan's question was lost in the sudden violent crush of Logan's mouth on his own. The little voice in Duncan's head figured out this must have been how Lilly helped him cope. And the rest of him decided he didn't mind.

That was the first time.

* * *

Duncan's head throbbed post-funeral, with one immutable, irrefutable fact: _Lilly is dead_.

His sister was as dead and buried as Duncan's memories from the past few days. Celeste's grip was tight around his waist, maybe her way of making sure he wasn't lost, too.

Vague snippets of conversation danced on the wind around him, select words funneling into his ear canal. Murder. _I'm so sorry_. Investigation. _She was so young_. They battled for dominance in his head: murder, Lilly, Lilly, murder, Lilly Lilly Lilly...

_Dead_.

Logan came into Duncan's view with perfect clarity, his appearance silencing the chaos in Duncan's brain. He would've smiled at his friend if he could remember how.

"Logan," said Jake.

"Mr. Kane. Mrs. Kane."

Celeste said nothing.

Jake again: "Normally I'd ask how you were holding up, but..."

Logan's smile was a wan reflex. "Right. Hey, um, I was..." This was a first, Duncan thought, Logan's inability to articulate. "I can drive Duncan home, if you don't mind."

"No, not at all," said Jake. "Thank you very much, Logan." As much as they disliked Lilly, Duncan's parents (his alone, now) absolutely adored Logan. It was less his charming personality and more of his affluent, influential parents, Duncan suspected. He wondered how delighted they'd be if they knew Logan had defiled not one, but both of their children.

Jake's hand landed warm and heavy on Duncan's shoulder. "You boys take your time, now," he said, managing to throw a tired smile his son's way. "You have a lot to talk about."

Duncan took the love warily. And guiltily, knowing perfectly well that talking wasn't on the agenda.

The backseat of the X-Terra, halfway home on the PCH, sloppy and fast as ever. It was hard to tell who was grieving more. Even with their bodies linked so tightly, there was an unmistakable gap between them, the three days Duncan had lost, days where they'd needed each other (needed _someone_) and were left to fumble through alone.

And even with Logan there - right _there_ \- Duncan still felt alone.

* * *

Lilly had barely been buried when the sheriff's department tried to dig her up, tear her apart.

Duncan didn't know what his parents had or hadn't said. He barely knew what he himself said. He didn't remember. Didn't remember the interview, didn't remember the day Lilly died. He knew it was a blackout, his worst yet, but he couldn't explain that. He couldn't tell Sheriff Mars the truth, because then Veronica would know the truth.

Oh, God, Veronica.

It hit him all at once, the idea that he'd lost the two women he'd loved the most, so close to one another.

It hit him that he'd lost both of his sisters.

He ended up at Logan's.

"Duncan, how are you?" Aaron Echolls asked, cinematically concerned. Duncan, for his part, couldn't meet the movie star's eye. He'd been at Logan's plenty since Lilly had divulged the secret, but Aaron had never been there, always off filming.

He'd always been nice to Duncan. Lynn, too. Genial, welcoming, glad (like the Kanes) that their son chose to associate with those like his own, gladder still that Duncan was comparatively sane. Of course, the definition of sanity had no meaning here. Or anywhere in Neptune.

"I'm all right," Duncan lied. What was he expected to say? He was being medicated, scrutinized, investigated, and lied to. He had questions. He did not have answers. Moreover, he had the ghost of his sister dancing in his head in the gap before his next dose.

"I'm so terribly sorry for your loss," Aaron said passionately, and he actually sounded human, not like Aaron Echolls, Movie Star. "We all loved Lilly. Her death was... regrettable." Duncan thought he saw Aaron's forehead wrinkle for a beat. "This is such a terrible tragedy to go through. Especially at your age. I hope you and Logan are helping each other through this."

"Yeah," said Duncan stupidly.

"And how's Veronica doing?"

Logan's inexplicable gift for cutting through the shit in Duncan's brain must have been hereditary, because all Aaron had to do was say Veronica's name to spark a memory. A new one, but one that was definitely his: _Veronica crouched in front of him, in her pep squad uniform, Pirate pride, eyes wide, "Duncan, what happened? Where's Lilly?" They were words he understood, but they meant nothing. "Please talk to me."_

But he could never talk to his sister again.

"She's... I mean..."

Aaron nodded, "I understand," which made one of them.

Logan was in his room playing video games, staring at the screen with deadened eyes. Neither of them said hi. Duncan threw himself face down on the mattress and buried his face in the pillow. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He did nothing, though, just lay there and wondered how slowly he could suffocate, then Logan turned him over.

* * *

The next time Duncan saw Aaron Echolls was at his wife's wake. He seemed to be the most together person in the room. Duncan lay a hand on the man's shoulder and said, truly sincere, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Echolls."

Aaron said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes. The two of them were joined, banded together in their sadness, a way no one else would ever understand. Aaron squeezed Duncan's shoulder in solidarity, then wordlessly nodded his head towards the staircase, indicating where Duncan could find Logan.

Logan was the exact opposite of together. He was sitting on his bed playing video games (again, still), but that was where the illusion ended. He spouted some nonsense that was outright lunacy. Duncan was an expert on crazy, and he knew this was too much.

Still, though, he felt a stab of envy. Logan still had a spark of hope, insane though it was, that this was not the end, this was not over, his mother was still alive. Duncan had woken up shortly after Lilly's burial. There was no spark of hope.

"You want some of my antidepressants, man?"

"Didn't know you were still on those." Logan picked at a thread on the bedspread. "I'm not depressed."

"You realize it's unlikely. Your mom, I mean."

"Yeah, we'll see."

Duncan wanted to be supportive, but had no idea what to do in this situation. So he offered what he always offered. "You wanna-"

Logan didn't meet his eyes. "Not now."

Lynn (Lester) Echolls turned out to definitely be dead. They never spoke of it again.

* * *

Duncan watched Veronica leave the party, evidence clutched in her hand. He knew he should have be happy to see those tapes, know that he was absolved of guilt, that his parents would once again be able to look him in the eye, that he could sleep at night without being visited by Lilly's ghost. It was supposed to be a beginning, an existence without guilt. She wasn't Lilly's sister. He wasn't Veronica's brother.

He knew he should've gone back to the party, keep an eye on Aaron like he'd promised.

He threw up in one of the potted plants in the foyer.

Duncan had _comforted_ the man. Touched him, offered apologies, felt solidarity in grief, looked at that man and thought they were suffering the same sort of loss.

The man who'd fucked his sister. The man who'd _killed_ his sister.

Duncan's pocket buzzed and he grabbed for his phone urgently, praying for Veronica. Logan's name blinked incessantly at him instead. Duncan ignored it. He wanted to keep the line clear for Veronica. That, and he was in no mood for Logan's shit right then. He should have been feeling some sort of solidarity, they were both equally betrayed in the scenario, but this was something Duncan wanted for himself.

He could still picture the two of them, kissing in Logan's living room (a personal invite to the party by Aaron himself; Duncan almost wretched again), and he boiled with rage. He went to look for Aaron.

The Echollses were agents of the Kanes' destruction.

* * *

Hatred simmered then cooled. Duncan had Veronica again, after all, the knowledge of his innocence, and with Aaron facing trial he knew Lilly's spirit would be at rest. Which was more than could ever truly be said of Lilly when she was alive. His life was on the upswing. Logan's only got worse. And so they were friends once more.

He had a girlfriend when Meg died. Veronica grieved, in her own angry sort of way, and he should have gone to her, they should have worked it out together, but he ended up at Logan's side anyway.

Logan looked him over with cool appraisal. "Meg?" He didn't ask about Veronica. They brought her up rarely if never.

"She was..."

"I heard."

"She had..."

"I know." Logan's hand closed around Duncan's bicep and dragged him into the room. The time for talking was over. Logan was his best friend, the only one who really understood (the Lilly thing, the Veronica thing), but theirs was a relationship built on stark, bare-boned communication. Talk was better saved for nice, normal (heterosexual) relationships.

When they were done, lying on the mattress and not touching, though Duncan remained acutely aware of precisely how much space was between them. "Life is fucked up," Duncan observed sullenly, remembering his one night with Meg. Beautiful and sweet, like she was. He recalled the way she'd fallen asleep on his chest, hand clutching his. How he'd woken up and smiled, devoid of all the horror that came with waking up next to the wrong person. That time, he'd done it right. That time, he hadn't run.

It hadn't worked out well anyway.

"Death is fucked up," Logan answered.

"It chooses wrong," was Duncan's brilliant contribution.

"Some might say the same thing about life," said Logan. Duncan chanced a glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but Logan was staring resolutely at the ceiling. The subtext was unavoidable: they were two very fucked-up individuals who only managed to get more fucked up over time, leaving a trail of dead in their wake. It seemed unavoidable and oppressive.

"Maybe Neptune's the gateway to hell," said Duncan, without really meaning to.

"Gateway?" said Logan. "Maybe we're already there."

* * *

In the end, Duncan didn't say goodbye. Frankly, he couldn't. He and Veronica had agreed to keep this as quiet as humanly possible. Given their penchant for secrets, that ended up being pretty quiet. But beyond the plan hinging on his silence, Duncan simply couldn't bring himself to have that 'final' confrontation. The very last exchange he ever had with Logan was behind the couch: "You going to first period?" "Have they implemented the strip-lectures like I asked?" "I don't think so." "Hmm. Then no."

He thought about leaving a message for Veronica to pass along, but there was nothing he could say that wouldn't prompt Veronica to investigate and eventually find out their secret. He loved Veronica, always had, loved everything about her. Even her nosiness. But even so, it was best directed elsewhere. There were few secrets that were still his.

Duncan wondered if Logan would tell. If Logan denied Veronica anything. He'd always come running back to Lilly, after all, though she broke his heart continually. He still made his attempts to support his family, no matter how unconscious a behavior it was, even though all they'd ever done was shit on him.

For a few moments, Duncan let the grief consume him, the death of this life, and the knowledge he would just be another name of the roster of people who'd abandoned Logan. For another few moments, he considered taking Logan with him. But that was a bad idea. Logan liked the self-pity, liked being mired in pain and destruction, and in many ways, Duncan's departure was for the best.

He would have been lying if the tougher nights, alone with a screaming baby and his dreams still clinging fruitlessly to the life he'd left behind, didn't have his muscles aching with the memory of going to Logan's, if his body didn't burn for a familiar touch. But that was his new tragedy, and in the wake of everything else, it wasn't so bad.


End file.
